


Spinning Wild

by midnightdiddle (gooseberry)



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: Age Difference, F/M, Friendship/Love, Viera, species difference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-08
Updated: 2007-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-31 04:42:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12674655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gooseberry/pseuds/midnightdiddle
Summary: Fran meets Balthier in late summer, when the grass is burnt yellow and there is dust in the air.  Balthier is young, sixteen, and he hesitates over his name, has the wide-eyed look of a run-away.  Fran hasn't spent much time around particular humes, but this time she decides she has time to spare, and so she follows Balthier.He moves in that fast, frantic way all the humes have, and Fran finds herself falling into his world more and more.  The idea that in a few years he'll be dead, and she'll still be alive, becomes more foreign every day.  At times, she reaches up, and she's surprised when she touches ears, long and soft and warm.  She forgets herself, and wonders what it is about a skinny little hume boy that makes her forget the Wood.--Fran and Balthier's relationship over a few years, from Balthier's teenage years to young adulthood. Basically Fran-centric introspection on viera-hume differences as she watches Balthier grow up.





	Spinning Wild

**i**

Fran meets Balthier in late summer, when the grass is burnt yellow and there is dust in the air. Balthier is young, sixteen, and he hesitates over his name, has the wide-eyed look of a run-away. Fran hasn't spent much time around particular humes, but this time she decides she has time to spare, and so she follows Balthier.

He moves in that fast, frantic way all the humes have, and Fran finds herself falling into his world more and more. The idea that in a few years he'll be dead, and she'll still be alive, becomes more foreign every day. At times, she reaches up, and she's surprised when she touches ears, long and soft and warm. She forgets herself, and wonders what it is about a skinny little hume boy that makes her forget the Wood.

**ii**

Balthier looks at her sometimes, in all his sixteen years of age, and sometimes when Fran looks back, she sees eyes that look frantic and almost hungry. He is a bundle of hormones, thoughts of sex and actions of sex, all desperate and needy, and Fran has no idea on how to respond.

Sex to the viera is quiet, methodical, because to viera, all things are quiet and methodical. When faced with this, the hume speed and frantic need, Fran can't respond, because she doesn't know how.

She hopes that, with time, Balthier will grow out of this, because the thought of a half-century spent avoiding Balthier's shy, awkward, clumsy advances make her ears burn in a way Fran never thought possible.

**iii**

Fran's hearing is astute. She's a viera, and she spent the first half dozen centuries of her life learning to listen to the Green Word. The Wood's voice was always soft, floaty and insubstantial, and now, several centuries later, Fran can hear more than she wants. The Green Word might be inaudible to her, but Balthier isn't.

At night, he is the sounds of panting and skin around skin, fast and breathy. She can hear him shove his fist into his mouth, can hear his muffled cry, and she decides that this ship is too small. Wherever she is, she can still hear him, and she hates herself for thinking that the opportunity to listen to Balthier might have been a good trade for ability to listen to the Wood.

**iv**

Their kiss is a strange mixture of viera and hume. It is calm and thoughtful, because Fran is nothing if not deliberate. It's also lazy and indulgent, because Balthier is nothing if not self-pleasing. Fran pulls away first, because she was the one who leaned in first, and she is, as always, startled by Balthier's face.

"Did I land that well?" Balthier asks in that cocky, self-sure manner he has. Fran's not sure if all humes are like him, or if Balthier is simply unique to himself. She doesn't really want to know, though, because the thought of there being a world beyond Balthier is becoming a thought she dreads.

"Fran?" Balthier asks, leaning back in his seat, and she smiles for him as she leaves the cockpit.

**v**

Balthier grows quickly, builds and expands and becomes an entire world. Fran is startled the day Balthier's mouth is the same height as her shoulder. His hand fits neatly around her wrist, palm warm and a little sweaty, and Fran wonders when the hume boy became a hume man.

She has seen a small ink portrait of Cidolfus that Balthier pretends not to carry with him. Balthier is looking more and more like the ink portrait, and Fran is waiting for the day that Balthier's hair is grey-streaked, and his eyes are hidden behind thin-wire glasses.

**vi**

Balthier's voice no longer breaks. He is cocky, self-assured, and he pulls Fran along with the thoughtless belief that Fran will always be there. Fran doesn't have the heart to tell him that she'll always be there, but he won't. Instead, she follows along, and each year passes a little bit faster.

Balthier spins his ship, and spins his lies, and spins Fran around him, faster and faster until the outside world is a blur and all Fran can see is Balthier. She wants this, and doesn't want this, and she needs this, and hates herself for needing it. Balthier grabs her wrists, and she grabs his, and they spin, faster and faster until the world is a scream in their ears, drowning out the Green Word.

It's like a hume game, but to the humes, all of life is a game, with no winners and all losers. Fran's not a hume, but she's no longer a viera, and when she loses Balthier, she's sure it will be a lose like none other.

But for now, there is Balthier, and his wrists are warm, and his mouth is sure, and when they spin, they spin madder and madder, and fly higher and higher.

And this flight, however long is shall be, will be a beautiful one, Fran is sure.


End file.
